Incurable Tuberculosis Is Making a Comeback

Published Dec. 9, 2009 at 1:06 a.m.
630029-incurable-tuberculosis-is-making-a-comeback 630029-incurable-tuberculosis-is-making-a-comeback 630029-incurable-tuberculosis-is-making-a-comeback It's been nearly a decade since U2 frontman Bono turned the entire continent of Africa into a pet cause, drawing attention to the problems of -developing-world health like never before. By some accounts, that publicity has started to pay off: since 2000, malaria incidence is down 50 percent in some of the hardest-hit regions, and in the past five years, the number of people with access to life-saving HIV medications has increased 10-fold. But while First World philanthropists and rock-star do-gooders were out to conquer AIDS and malaria, they left a far more ancient killer to fester. Tuberculosis has been traced back as far as the Egyptian mummies. It still kills 5,000 people every day—more people than swine flu has killed in the past year. And right now, natural selection and human fallibility are conspiring to make the germ indestructible.





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